Saag Wala Chicken or Palak Chicken

Saag Wala Chicken or Palak Chicken is an outrageously delicious dish, full of flavor and loaded with nutrients!! It’s an amazing combination of delicious ingredients that is cooked together to create the yummiest dishes of all.

“Saag” is a Punjabi term used for all leafy green preparations made with either spinach leaves, fenugreek leaves, mustard leaves or collard leaves. And saag wala chicken or palak chicken is one of them – an authentic Indian recipe and a true keeper.

It tastes so delicious that even picky eaters won’t be able to resist this dish. Isn’t this a healthy way to incorporate leafy greens in a kid’s meal, a win-win situation for all of us. 😉

Sharing with you, my mom’s way of making palak chicken. Growing up, my mom’s palak chicken was my favorite. She was a great cook and would cook this chicken every other weekend as a part of our Sunday brunch. I have to admit -The Best Palak chicken ever!

RECIPE DETAIL – I begin the recipe by blanching spinach leaves. Blanching is the best way to preserve the nutrients and flavor of the greens. This way it adds a lovely color and texture to the dish. Next step is to prepare the gravy.

It’s a basic gravy prepared with onion-ginger-garlic and tomato. I have prepared the gravy from scratch but if you already have onion-tomato masala on hand, use that to save some cooking time. Did you know you can cook onion-tomato masala in a slow cooker too ? Other substitutes-

Ghee adds a depth of flavor to this dish but feel free to use oil as a substitute.

Instead of curd, cashew paste can be added to the gravy for a creamy texture.

Chicken can be substituted with mutton but overall cooking time will vary as mutton takes longer to cook.

Enjoy the goodness of spinach and chicken in this hearty and healthy recipe. Do give this scrumptious recipe a try and I am sure you are going to love it as much as we do!!

Boil water in a pan. Add spinach. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes. Using a slotting spoon remove spinach and..

Drop into a large bowl of ice water.

This will stop the cooking process.

Once cooled, drain and coarsely ground spinach. Save the water in which spinach was boiled. Can be used in the chicken later.

PREPARING GRAVY

Wash and clean tomatoes. Apply a small incision in tomatoes and drop them in a potful of boiling water for 7-9 minutes.

Soon you will notice the skin peeling off from the tomatoes. Using a slotted spoon remove tomatoes from hot water and give them a cold bath by dropping in cold water. This will speed up the peeling process.

Peel off the tomato skin and discard. Using a sharp knife chop the juicy flesh of tomatoes.

Assemble all the masala ingredients.

And dry spices.

To make the masala - add ghee to a hot pan, add whole spices and cumin seeds.

As they start to sputter, add ginger-garlic paste. Mix and saute for 5-6 SECONDS. Stir in onion paste and mix.

Keep sauteing till all the liquid has evaporated and masala looks all dried. Stir in chopped tomatoes.

Add tomato puree and stir in all the dry spices one by one.

I prefer to cook garam masala powder along with my gravy, instead of adding it at the last minute. This way it releases more flavor and adds heat to the gravy.

Add beaten curd and give it a good mix. Cook for another 2-3 minutes till the masala is reduced in size and ghee starts to separate. Add pureed palak to it.

Mix well and allow it to simmer for 20- 25 minutes till palak color changes from light green to dark green in color. Meanwhile clean and wash chicken pieces.

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62 Responses

Hi.. Will be trying this recipe right now. Just had a few doubts… Is the tomato puree store bought?? If yes.. What would be the other option.
You have mentioned half cup of onion paste.. How many onions would that be approximately?

Thanks Jacquie! Prepared saag stays good in the refrigerator for 2 days (depending on the weather).
Chicken saag freezes beautifully. Prepare the saag, once cooled transfer it to a airtight container and freeze. When ready to use, thaw for 3-4 hours in the fridge. Warm it over the cooktop or in the microwave and enjoy!!

I made this in the weekend and it was yummo. The instructions were very good however just one small problem I had trying to work out how much spinach makes 2 cups pureed spinach…ended up doing 3 batches of spinach to get the right amount lol. A weight of the dried spinach before cooking would be very useful here.

I had to mention I’m grateful I came onto your page! Its fabulous. Simply love it with systematic and step wise layouts and presentations. Tried this recipe word to word and its too delicious. We were licking our fingers which is strictly prohibited in my home. Drool worthy recipes and such lovely pictures.

Just tried this recipe for the first time the other night and it was a finger licking good experience!..sorry if that sounded cliched but it was truely yummm..a small addition to ur recipe i had tho..was that i threw in about 3 to 4 green chillies and the spice and slight acidity of the curd just belnded sooo well that im inspired to try this same recipe in mutton for an upcoming dinner party..pls let me know if there are any cooking tips that needs to be altered while using mutton for this recipe..like will it help reduce the cooking time if i tenderise the mutton by marinading it in a lil curd or in vinegar?…thanks again!..im browsing through ur list of recipes for my next cooking adventure😊😊

Thanks for your wonderful feedback Ruhee. Glad you liked/loved the recipe. 🙂 🙂 For mutton –
. Marinating it in curd or vinegar sounds like a great option.
. Another option would be to pressure cook the mutton until half cooked and then sauteing it with spinach mixture. If you happen to cook this recipe again, share some pics with me at my facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/ruchiskitchen

This was so delicious and easy once I memorised the order of things. I’ll definitely come back to this recipe as a base for experimentation. I’ve never used pureed onions, such a nice flavour that disperses evenly, it’s so obvious! My sensitive eyes preferred this method much more than blindly, ferociously chopping. Thanks for such a great recipe and for introducing my to new things!

Hi, I’m a Malaysian Punjabi n i had a meal of this super Saag WalaChicken in a restaurant in Glasgow n back home now I was looking for a gud receipe ……find yours to be a perfect one….well explained with illustrations.Tq Rushi.

Thanks so much for your wonderful recipe and great easy to follow photographs. Its a beauty, my current food obsession. Ive tried many Saagwala type recipes but not come close to this. I have made a few small changes, but its your method of making the pastes with the onions, tomatoes garlic and ginger that really make a difference I think. Thanks again…..its on the menu again tonight!

Hi Ruchi,
I tried this recipe it turned out to be yummy. My husband and me just loved it. Used the same measurement like you mentioned thanks for sharing this recipe. This is an easy way of getting palak into our systems. Thanks again.

Cooked your Saag Wala Chicken, Wonderful! the illustrated step by step instructions its so simple to cook whereas when the dish is placed on the table it replicates a professionals job. Love the right quantities of ingredients. Today I celebrate my 32 anniversary have called family for dinner and sure enough will treat them to this gastronomical delight 😉

Tried this and very tasty results. I don’t like spinach that much but seeing this recipe was tempted to try it out, great successful recipe and at home everyone is asking for a second round of it. Thanks Ruchi!

Very authentic and amazingly delicious recipe. In fact the chicken pieces got coated so well in the palak gravy that everyone licked there fingers and plate. It took me about 55 minutes from start to finish and the dish came out beautifully. Ruchi, your recipes are well written and explained and that is why I come back to your site more often. Thanks for a successful recipe.

Best Chicken Saag I’ve ever made. I did double up the spices according to my taste. This is an excellent recipe and I will definitely be making it again. Thanks for sharing. Even my little kids devoured this meal. Huge Huge hit! Love you 🙂

I wanted to thank you for taking the time in showing such detailed pictures and steps. I have little experience with Indian cooking, and your tutorials make all the difference in the world. I know it takes a lot of time, but thank you.

Loved ur recipes.. Tried few of ur Indian snack recipes n came out very good.. Please don’t mind me asking but do u share videos for non-veg recipes too.. If yes, I would be happy to watch them n try cooking..
Thank u n plz do reply…